Nicole Curato: How to transcend political impasses on climate & everything else

The RegenNarration Podcast

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This podcast has been increasingly hearing about the extraordinary outcomes that can stem from deliberative democratic processes. I still hear from listeners about past episodes with people like Jeff Goebel and Amanda Cahill.
So this week, we head to the nation’s capital to speak with someone I’ve been looking forward to meeting for years. Professor Nicole Curato is with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She’s also a prominent journalist, particularly in her former home country of the Philippines. She’s written op-eds for the New York Times, The Guardian & Al Jazeera. And she regularly collaborates with CNN Philippines, occasionally serving as a television presenter, and has hosted documentaries and produced podcasts.
Nicole explores how democratic innovations unfold in the aftermath of tragedies, including disasters, armed conflict, and urban crime. To that we might add increasing stresses like climate change, housing and political polarisation. Nicole is the author of Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action. Which might just as well have been sub-titled, from spectacular tragedy to spectacular deliberative action, such is the nature of some of the stories she has to share - in terms of their outcomes in the world, and their life-changing effects on those involved. And in a context right now where democracy itself is on the line, and with it the possibility of coming together to produce more of the extraordinary outcomes we know we can, Nicole was the person I needed to speak with.
I suggested to Nicole that we meet in her favourite part of Canberra. She took us to Tilley’s. And what a place. No surprises then, that we wind up talking about how all this relates to social media, karaoke and Taylor Swift.
Head here for automatic cues to chapter markers and a transcript, also available on Apple and some other apps. (Note the transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read.)
Recorded in Canberra on 7 March 2024.
Title slide: Nicole Curato at Tilley’s, just before this conversation (pic: Olivia Cheng).
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Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from the film Regenerating Australia.

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Chapters

1. Music, Preview, Introduction & Supporter Thanks (00:00:00)

2. Welcome to the incredible Tilley’s (& Nicole’s background & spark for this work) (00:04:00)

3. Deliberative Democracy and Philippine Politics (00:10:46)

4. Some of Nicole’s outstanding experiences of deliberative democracy (00:18:00)

5. (Relocating to the park next door) The incredible story of a community in the Philippines that had been decimated by disaster (00:23:15)

6. Applying deliberative processes to political action on climate in some extraordinary ways (00:29:00)

7. How these processes bridge divides between people (00:31:50)

8. An Irish citizens assembly on abortion (00:33:00)

9. Why would people in power give up power? (And how!) (00:35:55)

10. Citizens' Assemblies and Transforming Parliament (00:37:16)

11. Transcending adversarial politics (00:40:00)

12. The Australian Citizens Parliament – the first in the world! (And how this could be applied to the housing crisis now) (00:41:00)

13. Deliberative Democracy and Social Media (00:42:16)

14. What hope is there for these processes when power goes the way of a Trump or Duterte? (rebuilding the public square) (00:43:20)

15. The potential dark side of citizens assemblies (00:46:30)

16. Facilitators are the unsung heroes (AI can’t do this!) (00:47:30)

17. Can social media be done this way? (spoken from trolled experience) (00:48:45)

18. A great example from Taiwan! (and one from Australia) (00:51:00)

19. Slow journalism & Nicole’s narrative work in media (00:53:30)

20. What do we do to enable more ‘deliberative journalism’? (Tying it all together) (00:57:00)

21. Music & Closing Words (00:59:40)